


It's All Over But The Crying

by linndechir



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Breathplay, Caesar's Legion, Forced Orgasm, M/M, Rape By Proxy, Slavery, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 17:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20679431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: Lucius wasn't a cruel man. To Arcade that was almost the worst part of it - that he wasn't cruel and could still do all the things the Legion required him to do. Torture, kill, rape. He wasn't cruel, and yet he didn't even hesitate when Caesar ordered him to fuck his favourite slave.





	It's All Over But The Crying

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir) in the [iibb2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/iibb2019) collection. 

“I thought I was supposed to enjoy myself,” Arcade snarled when the leather bands tightened around his wrists. He’d struggled when his clothes had been taken off and he’d been pushed down onto the bedroll, but to no avail. That seemed to be the story of his life, ever since he’d been brought to the Fort. Pointless attempts at resistance that got him nowhere. Lucius's hands were incongruously gentle when they tied him down, or maybe ‘careful’ would have been a better word. Soft-spoken Lucius who seemed almost civilised compared to most men around him, and yet Arcade remembered too well the stories he’d heard, that few men in the Legion were as good at _coaxing_ information out of prisoners as the leader of Caesar’s Praetorians. Patient. Methodical. No less dangerous than Caesar’s temper or Vulpes’s sadism. Arcade pulled on the restraints, but they didn’t give an inch, any more than he could buck Lucius off from where he straddled his thighs, his weight holding Arcade down.

“You are,” Lucius said calmly, as if this was an assignment like any other. Maybe it was. Maybe Caesar made a habit of pimping out his highest ranking soldiers. Arcade somehow doubted it. "I’m making sure you don’t hurt yourself struggling."

Lucius rolled his shoulders like a man limbering up before a fight. Clad in nothing but a Legionary’s leather skirt, he wasn't a bad sight – a sight Arcade might have welcomed into his bed if he were anyone else but Caesar’s devoted guard dog, and if Arcade had been given any choice in the matter. Lucius was in terrific shape, not only for a man his age, lean muscles and finely honed strength, tanned skin with countless uneven scars that spoke of inadequate medical care and sufficient toughness to survive despite it. 

As close as they were, Arcade could tell Lucius wasn't hard, not even once he put his calloused hands on Arcade’s body. Disgustingly gentle as they stroked over Arcade's bare skin, caressing here, gently tweaking there – a torturer’s hands, Arcade reminded himself, that’s why they knew so well which spots were particularly sensitive. Or maybe it was that nobody had touched Arcade in months, not like this, not with anything akin to tenderness. Human beings needed physical contact, that was a scientific fact, so of course his body yearned for it when the only contact it had got for months was getting pushed and kicked around. Of course this felt nice in comparison: the warm touch on his side, the playful teasing of his nipple, the hot pressure of another man’s weight against his crotch. The horrible mockery of a considerate lover’s patience in every touch. Arcade flinched at the first tendril of arousal rearing its head inside him, tried in vain to move away from Lucius’s hands.

“You don’t even want to do this,” he said and pulled on the restraints again. They were tied so expertly that all his struggling didn’t even cut off his circulation. Arcade knew he was all but begging, but that seemed like a smaller dent in his pride than where this was going. He wasn’t going to get raped by a Legionary and _like it_. “I’ll tell Caesar you did. I’ll even pretend I enjoyed myself. That way everyone’s happy, right? Well, as happy as I’m going to get as the personal slave of a hypocritical fascist dictator who wants to eradicate everything I – ”

Lucius covered his mouth with almost insulting casualness. The look he gave Arcade was as disbelieving as if Arcade had suggested the sky might be green.

“You think I would lie to Caesar? That I would betray my Lord’s trust in me and disobey his direct command, for the sake of a profligate slave?” The last word was accompanied by firm fingers closing around Arcade’s cock, squeezing, teasing, stroking it to reluctant hardness. Lucius was leaning forward now, bracing his other hand beside Arcade’s head, his blue eyes bright with that terrible loyalty Caesar somehow inspired in his men. His voice had dropped low, thick with a frightening intensity. Arcade would never understand it. Caesar did have a certain charisma, there was no denying that, but that hardly warranted the undying devotion he instilled in his followers, even in smart men like Lucius or Vulpes, who were quite capable of thinking for themselves. “I don’t believe you realise what a rare honour it is for Caesar to reward a slave. Let alone to reward him with _me_. You must have pleased him greatly.”

Arcade closed his eyes, tried to think of anything but the firm, regular pressure on his cock, tried to block out the whispered words. He’d survived, that was all. A more courageous man would have taken torture and death in stride rather than help the megalomaniacal bastard who wanted to destroy everything Arcade believed in, but he’d been weak and frightened and he’d survived. Somehow being rewarded for his own betrayal only made it worse, but even the guilt of that thought didn’t make him soften, didn’t keep the first needy gasp from his lips when hot breath and the pleasant scratch of Lucius’s beard ghosted over the side of his neck, a mockery of a kiss. Maybe that was all Lucius would do, get him off and report to Caesar that he’d done as required, but Arcade knew better than to hope for that. He had heard Caesar’s orders. Caesar had told Lucius to fuck him – “imagine he’s that pretty blonde slave girl you couldn’t get enough of last year, if you must, but I want him bow-legged and fucked out in the morning” – and Lucius was nothing if not obedient.

Lucius kept nuzzling his throat, teeth lightly grazing the thin skin right over Arcade’s pulse, and Arcade had to bite his bottom lip to stay quiet at that. He wanted to be repulsed – he _was_ repulsed, but his body soaked up that meaningless tenderness with nothing short of desperation. He almost let out a sigh of relief when Lucius straightened up on top of him to look down at Arcade’s cock in his hand, shamefully hard, wet at the tip where Lucius’s thumb rubbed over it. For the first time there was something almost like interest in Lucius’s eyes and he shifted a little. Arcade couldn’t quite keep himself from glancing at the tensing muscles in his strong thighs.

“Caesar said you didn’t want to use a slave.” Even after months at the Fort, the casual way the Legion talked about its slaves made Arcade shudder with disgust. It was a welcome reprieve from other thoughts that were starting to cloud his mind.

“No, because slavery is wrong,” he said bitingly, doing his best to make it clear that he was stating something very, very obvious. “I may not be able to do anything to help the slaves you keep here, but I’m not going to rape one.”

“Hm,” Lucius said, his fingers trailing slowly to the base of Arcade’s cock, brushing over his balls before they pressed down lightly behind them. Arcade felt himself twitch. “Because your tastes run towards something different. Something more debasing.” He paused, his fingers making Arcade wait for what he knew was coming. Torture was half anticipation, wasn’t it? Of course Lucius was good at that. Arcade still did not expect the next words. “Were you hoping Caesar himself would touch you?”

“Fuck, no!” Arcade said, but his body shuddered involuntarily when Lucius’s fingers finally slid further, between his cheeks, a gentle brush on sensitive skin. It was true at least that Arcade enjoyed that, but not like this, never like this. He didn’t know if the idea of Caesar doing this to him was more or less horrifying, if that meaningless fondness in Caesar’s eyes would be easier to bear than the calculating look Lucius was giving him. At least it might feel more like getting fucked by a man who wanted him than by a dog that only obeyed its master’s orders.

“Ingrate,” Lucius growled and tore Arcade out of his musing. His body was radiating heat, and something about he intimacy of this position – Lucius kneeling between his spread legs, his lips touching Arcade’s ear again, the dry pressure against his sensitive skin – made it so hard not to _want_, in a primal, mindless way. Maybe that was how Caesar got men to follow him, by appealing to their base nature, by letting them be the beasts they wanted to be. “Caesar favours you, allows you into his presence every day, rewards you, and you don’t appreciate any of it.”

It wasn’t quite anger Arcade heard in his voice, but something like resentment, genuine outrage. As if he truly could not imagine why a slave would hate the man who owned him instead of showing him _gratitude_. But then Legionaries were all slaves themselves, slaves who’d learnt to worship their master. Lucius probably couldn’t even fathom a mind free of submission to Caesar’s will.

“Careful, or I might get the impression that you’re the one hoping to get fucked by Caesar,” Arcade said. Survival or not, he’d never been good at keeping his thoughts to himself, not when it came to goading the likes of Lucius, those men who were at heart nothing but brutes who took what they wanted with no regard for anyone but themselves. He’d barely finished the sentence before pain shot through his body, one of Lucius’s knees pushing too hard into Arcade’s thigh, and then his right hand grabbed Arcade’s throat. Not choking him, just threatening it, holding it tight enough that Arcade swallowed in nervous fear. 

But the pain made his arousal flag a little. Maybe he could spare himself at least the humiliation of getting off on what was done to him, if he already couldn’t stop it from happening.

“Is that it?” he pressed on. “You all worship him like he’s a living god; of course you’d bend over for him, too, never mind how _debasing_ you consider such an act.”

The pressure on Arcade’s throat increased until it was unbearable, but just as he had to gasp for air, Lucius’s grip shifted – let him breathe even as Lucius’s fingertips dug painfully into the sides of his neck. Even as light-headed as he was feeling, Arcade still noticed that Lucius was actually getting hard now. He’d never struck Arcade as particularly sadistic, but this was probably much closer to his usual idea of sex. Violence, dominance, brainless machismo. Arcade only wished there wasn’t a part of him that found it almost attractive.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Lucius said. His face was so close to Arcade’s that they were breathing the same hot air. The grip on Arcade’s throat made him dizzy, but to his horror that only seemed to make his entire body more sensitive, his cock twitching when Lucius cupped his balls and squeezed. He shifted between Arcade’s legs until his cock brushed against the juncture of Arcade’s hip and thigh, a hot and heavy touch that reminded Arcade of more pleasant encounters. Arcade’s breathing was still ragged, his lips parted and entirely unprepared when Lucius licked over his bottom lip, slowly as if he wanted to savour the taste. Arcade tried to flinch away, but he could barely turn his head.

Lucius’s voice had hardened, from its earlier conversational tone to something sharper and unforgiving. Someone had told Arcade once that the soft-spoken ones were always the most dangerous. Or maybe he’d read it somewhere? He couldn’t remember, but his brain helpfully pointed out that the warning might apply to Vulpes as much as to Lucius. His arms ached from the unfamiliar position, his mind reeled with a mixture of fear and helpless arousal, and every time he swallowed, he felt the heavy pressure of Lucius’s hand on his throat.

“Caesar has commanded that you enjoy this, so enjoy it you will.” Lucius sounded so certain, as if Caesar’s will was as irresistible as the laws of nature. “I’ll make sure of it, no matter how much you run your mouth. I know how to make a man beg.”

A sharp spike of fear went through Arcade, even as he knew that Lucius couldn’t truly hurt him. Not without permission. But when had fear ever been a rational thing? He licked his lips.

“Not with your usual methods, though,” he said and gritted his teeth when Lucius let go of his throat, only to run his fingertips almost tenderly over the sensitive skin, down to the hollow between his collarbones. “Doesn’t it bother you? You’re probably the most respected soldier in the Legion and he pimps you out for sexual favours. And not even the kind you might enjoy.”

Blunt fingertips dug harder into Arcade’s flesh, pressing down to the side of his Adam’s apple. It didn’t keep him from breathing, but it _hurt_ and made him as dizzy as the choking had. And then it stopped, and Lucius patted his neck dismissively.

“I will never understand why Caesar _enjoys_ talking to you,” he said, his voice full of exasperation and without a sliver of doubt. Breaking through the walls of his loyalty, of that unquestioning devotion that didn’t even waver when he was reduced to this, shouldn’t have been this hard. Or maybe Lucius liked the idea more than it had seemed initially. Of humiliating Arcade, even if he didn’t want him. Arcade had no illusions about how much Caesar’s inner circle disliked him.

“My life would be a lot easier if he didn’t,” he said. When Lucius let go of him, he took advantage of the situation to try and squirm away, but Lucius caught one of Arcade’s thighs easily between his own and kept holding him down. Arcade had never thought of himself as particularly weak until he’d been forced into the mercy, or lack thereof, of men who spent half their days honing their bodies to perfection. While making damn sure not to use their heads too much.

“It would be far more unpleasant if he didn’t,” Lucius said darkly. He’d leant over to the side to recover a small jar from a pouch. When he opened it, the smell of xander root drifted over. There was an ointment the Legion made from it, to be used on abrasions and wounds and aching muscles. Oily and a little numbing. In any other situation it might have seemed like a kindness. “But you know that. You know you have it better than any other slave in the Legion’s possession. You should be kissing Caesar’s feet for his generosity.”

Lucius coated his fingers in some of the ointment with a matter-of-fact calmness that Arcade couldn’t look away from. His hands were strong, long-fingered, warm when they brushed once again over Arcade’s hard cock. He pushed Arcade’s legs further apart with the ease of a man who was used to taking what he wanted in bed. Arcade only bothered to resist for a few seconds – sometimes it felt more humiliating to struggle when he knew it’d be in vain than to save his strength. He closed his eyes when slick fingers brushed over his hole, but without seeing what was happening, his mind conjured up even more unwelcome images – of Caesar himself looming over him, demanding gratitude and devotion with hands that would in all likelihood treat their property much more roughly. _Redde Caesari quae sunt Caesaris_, Caesar’s voice whispered in his mind and he opened his eyes again to look at the lesser evil just as the first finger pushed into him. Arcade couldn’t help but groan, half in discomfort and half in pleasure that was really more caused by fond memories of this act than by what was happening now.

But Lucius was thorough, strong fingers kneading Arcade’s thigh to make him relax, when they weren’t stroking his cock again, only ever teasing, never quite giving Arcade enough friction and making him yearn for more. It worked, too, made Arcade’s hip twitch and distracted him from the stubborn intrusion, and it wasn’t long before the first waves of grudging pleasure washed over him. It was simple anatomy, nerves reacting to a pleasant stimulus, but that didn’t make him hate his body’s reaction any less, or Lucius any less for forcing it out of him.

“How do you even – fuck, who even taught you that?” he said, sounding more breathless than he liked. “Don’t tell me you have your slave girls finger –”

He didn’t get to finish that sentence because Lucius slapped his cock, lightly enough that it smarted rather than stung, that it made Arcade moan rather than scream. Two fingers were inside him to the knuckles, pressing relentlessly against his prostate while Lucius’s thumb rubbed over the stretched, sensitive skin of his hole. Arcade wished it’d hurt more, wished Lucius had simply turned him over and taken him. Maybe Caesar would have been quicker about it, too vain and too full of himself to care how Arcade felt about it. He pushed that thought aside, focused on something, anything else.

“Or was it when you were a recruit? I know what some of the instructors get up to with those boys.” It wasn’t something he should joke about, but he wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic to the likes of Lucius right now, no matter how brutally the Legion beat and abused its men into submission. Lucius gave him an odd look, but Arcade couldn’t tell if he’d struck a nerve or not.

“A recruit wouldn’t need to be coddled like this.” The derision in his voice was biting, as sharp as the next thrust of his fingers. Arcade’s legs twitched helplessly, he tried to close them, but there was no twisting away from Lucius, no escaping him when he reached up with his left hand and took advantage of Arcade’s next gasp to shove two fingers into his mouth. “Now be quiet, profligate. My orders don’t include listening to your bleating.”

Arcade still tried to say something, but Lucius’s fingers pressed down on his tongue mercilessly, filling his mouth with the taste of skin and sweat, while his thumb dug into the soft flesh under Arcade’s chin. There was something inescapable about the strength of those hands that made Arcade’s eyes burn, and a part of him couldn’t help but remember that he’d always been attracted to men like that – muscular, strong, unafraid. Trust the Legion to ruin that, too, to sully every memory of playful scuffles in bed, of strong men gently wrestling him down to have their way with him, with the sight of Lucius’s muscles shifting easily above him as he forced Arcade’s legs further apart and pushed his knees up with insulting ease.

The fingers in his mouth at least muffled his whimpering when Lucius rubbed the tip of his cock against Arcade’s hole. Arcade forced himself to look at him, at the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the hungry look in his eyes that had replaced the earlier expression of cold calculation. At least one of them was having fun now, Arcade thought bitterly.

He did his best to remain tense when Lucius started pushing into him, tried to focus on the sharp burn of the intrusion, on the discomfort of his position, on anything that wasn’t the more pleasant tingle of bare skin on his, or the smooth, slick slide of Lucius’s cock thrusting deeper until another involuntary shudder rippled through Arcade’s body. It hurt, he told himself, not nearly enough to blot out other sensations, but he desperately wanted the pain to be enough to distract him. The muscles in Lucius’s shoulder were straining – this was clearly not an area in which he’d ever had to hold back. There was no need for a Legionary to be gentle to a slave, at least not to any slave that didn’t have Caesar’s personal protection.

“Don’t rough him up, Lucius, I want him to have his fun,” Caesar had said, laughing and looking so fucking smug and pleased with himself. He’d touched the back of Arcade’s neck while he’d said it, stroking it like one would a dog, and Caesar had only laughed more when Arcade had flinched away from his touch. 

In a last attempt to provoke Lucius into losing his temper – maybe even enough to get him in trouble for disobeying his orders, or at least enough to save one last shred of Arcade’s dignity – Arcade bit down hard on the fingers in his mouth. Lucius’s grip had loosened a little and the bite took him by surprise, drew a pained yelp from his lips while he pulled his hand back instinctively, allowing Arcade to gasp for air. For a moment a terrifying, cold fury lit up Lucius’s eyes and the cowardly part of Arcade wondered if this’d be it, if he’d finally pushed him too far, and he hated that even now death was a more terrifying prospect than having to live with himself after this.

But instead of punching him, Lucius only slapped him hard across the face – a rebuke that was more humiliation than pain, something the Legion reserved for slaves and women and children. And a mere second after that slap Lucius thrust all the way into him, flooding Arcade’s confused nerves with too many sensations at once, pain and mindless arousal and through all that a profound feeling of shame. It was only because it had been so long, almost a year, since Arcade had been with anyone. It was only because he was lonely and starved for another man’s touch and because he was a healthy man with a functioning libido that had been neglected for too long. Arcade knew all those things, and yet they sounded like hollow justifications that brought him little comfort.

Lucius’s hand found its way back to Arcade’s throat, once again gripping it hard enough to hurt and restrain, but not enough to choke him into blissful oblivion. Arcade tried his damnedest to suppress the ragged groans that still escaped his throat as Lucius settled into a slow, deep rhythm that made Arcade’s cock twitch and leak helplessly against his stomach.

“You actually like this,” Lucius said. His voice was breathless for the first time since this had started, and Arcade hated that the realisation brought him a small measure of relief. He didn’t know if he could have borne the humiliation of Lucius barely even getting off on violating him. Lucius sounded surprised, as if he’d doubted the very possibility up until now. “I couldn’t believe it when Caesar told me this was to be a reward for you, but I – ah, I shouldn’t be surprised by your dissolute ways.” 

Arcade wanted to ask him how this was any more _dissolute_ than gang-raping slave girls, but Lucius’s grip still constricted his throat just enough to make him conscious of every breath he was drawing, of every moan he couldn’t suppress. His voice cracked when he tried to speak and instead of a cutting remark he only managed a whimper that didn’t sound half as pained as he wanted it to. Arcade wasn’t even sure if it was actually Lucius who called him “pathetic” in that moment or if it was his own mind taunting him for letting them win.

In his attempts to think about anything other than his own pleasure, he ended up focusing on all the wrong things – the low moans spilling from Lucius’s lips now, the play of muscles under tanned skin as he rolled his hips, the fact that he even _smelt_ good in that moment, fresh sweat and lust, even if there was no real desire behind it. It made it worse somehow, that under any other circumstances he would have desperately wanted a man like Lucius. It didn’t stop his body from tumbling towards the edge, heat pooling in his groin, his breath rasping desperately. Lucius’s rhythm had sped up a little, but he was sliding into Arcade so easily now, slick and open as if Arcade wanted him to. It felt too good, damn it all, and Arcade dug his fingernails into his palms as if that bit of pain could take his mind off the pleasure washing through him when he came between them.

He felt more than heard Lucius’s breath catch in surprise, felt the stutter in his hips before his next thrust came even harder. If Arcade had trusted his voice not to break, he would have asked him if that was the first time he’d ever made anyone but himself come. Even through the aftershocks of his own orgasm he couldn’t quite make himself feel disgusted at the soft moans against his neck, the deep, impatient thrusts until Lucius’s rhythm faltered and he stilled inside him, surprisingly quiet now as he simply panted against Arcade’s skin. 

Arcade wondered if it was shame for enjoying this that made him so quiet or if he always was, a side effect of growing up without any real privacy, and then he hated himself for even giving a damn. If Lucius felt at least a little bit bad for this, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, all the better. 

For a little while Lucius didn’t move, still pressed against him, his cock half-hard inside of Arcade, his breath hot on his skin, and the intimacy of it was almost more unbearable now than it had been before. Lucius even stroked Arcade’s thigh, with an absent-minded tenderness that made Arcade’s chest tighten until he could barely breathe. As if there was a normal person somewhere underneath all that carefully built up callousness. Arcade sighed when Lucius finally pulled out of him and sat up, and the relief that it was finally over brought him at least a small comfort as he felt Lucius’s come trickle down his thigh. He’d used to love that sensation, the filthy intimacy of it, and now it just made him feel like the Legion had found one more way to ruin him.

Arcade closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at Lucius, at those beautifully built limbs, that handsome face, those distractingly blue eyes. Every sound was too loud in the quiet tent – the splash of water, the rustling of wet fabric against skin as Lucius cleaned himself up, booted steps on the ground before the wet rag landed on Arcade’s thigh and Lucius leant down to untie him. A stupid part of Arcade wanted to punch him in the face – as if that would have done any good, even if his arms hadn’t been aching from the discomfort. As if Lucius wouldn’t have laughed at him for trying. He wore the bruises and cuts from his sparring fights with pride, like any Legionary did – showing off how little pain mattered to them. For a few moments Arcade didn’t move a muscle, hoping that Lucius would just leave now that he’d done his master’s bidding, but when it didn’t seem like he was that lucky, he sat up with a sigh and awkwardly washed the come off his skin before it could dry. To his surprise, he found that Lucius was looking at him.

Arcade cleared his throat until he could be reasonably sure his voice would obey him.

“You know, _I_ was supposed to enjoy this, but I’m not sure you were,” he said. Oh, he knew it was stupid to prod him, but he needed to do something to salvage his pride. The problem was that Lucius was solid as a rock, far harder to coax into anger than Caesar on his best days.

“You were tight. Any man would have enjoyed that.” Lucius shrugged; he genuinely looked unconcerned. “That doesn’t say anything about me.”

“No, of course not.” Arcade shook his head bitterly. He hesitated slightly when he reached for the thin blanket on his bedroll to cover himself, but Lucius didn’t stop him. “That’d be giving you too much credit, to assume you have some kind of interesting secret.”

“Do you still think that sort of comment insults me? I’m not ashamed of what I am, no matter how many insults you sling at me.” Lucius took a sip of water from the bottle he must have used earlier to wet the rag, and after a moment he handed the bottle over to Arcade. Arcade considered slapping it out of his hand, but his mouth was dry and the tent was too hot, and he wasn’t in the mood for another lecture about how ungrateful he was. Still, it stung – that such small gestures of kindness came so easily to Lucius. They didn’t even seem calculated, but as if they came as naturally to him as they would have to Arcade. It made everything else about him worse. Men like Caesar or Lanius or Vulpes, they would have been monsters no matter what society raised them. But men like Lucius? They could have been decent, in another world, another time, if they hadn’t had poison poured into their minds since they were children. Arcade took an angry swig from the bottle.

“And what are you, hm? A murderer, a rapist, a torturer, a mindless dog? Am I forgetting something? Some other complex aspect of your personality?” he snapped. The anger felt good. Better than the helplessness of being pinned down underneath him, trapped in his treacherous body.

“A man with a purpose,” Lucius said, still so implacably calm. Arcade knew that no matter what he said, nothing would get through decades of brainwashing, but he wasn’t so broken yet that he didn’t try.

“Tools have a purpose, Lucius, not men. You aren’t a thing to be used, nobody is – no matter what Caesar wants you to believe.”

Lucius shook his head. “Men who achieve anything in life have a purpose.”

“And what is it you think you have achieved, other than indulging the whims of a madman?”

“Peace,” Lucius said softly, then shrugged, as if he was embarrassed of caring about such a thing. As if that very word from the lips of a Legionary wasn’t a joke. “Maybe some day, when the NCR is no more, Caesar will return East. Maybe you will still be alive then. And then you’ll see what men with purpose can do.”

Ah, the old tale of safe roads and peaceful fields in Legion territories, as if those justified the crosses lining them. As if civilisation could only be built on corpses. As if order could only be established through whips and fear.

“Even if you’re right, even if the East is all you say it is, the price is too high.” Arcade knew arguing with Lucius was as pointless as arguing with Caesar, but not doing it felt like defeat, like admitting they were right – and at least it distracted him a little bit from how sore he felt, and more importantly from the fact that Lucius had been careful enough that it was the pleasant kind of soreness. He rubbed his wrists, made himself feel the pain in them.

“That’s the difference between you profligates and us. We don’t think any price is too high if the goal is worth reaching.” Lucius wasn’t looking at him now, but picked up his clothes and armour from the ground to dress again. It hadn’t occurred to Arcade before how different he looked without all that Legion red he usually wore, until he put it back on. Not that it mattered. Lucius would be Legion to the core even if one put him in an NCR uniform.

“And you truly think that’s a good thing. Some lines aren’t meant to be crossed.” Arcade wanted to get up, to get in his face instead of sitting there, cowered and sweaty and still naked under the blanket, but he didn’t think he had the strength left in him for that.

Lucius was quiet for a moment, as if he actually considered Arcade’s words. His fingers were closing the clasps of his armour blindly, years of repetitive practice guiding his hands. Those terrible, nimble hands. Arcade couldn’t help but flinch when Lucius crossed what little space there was between them in the narrow tent, before he went down on one knee so they’d be level and he could meet his eyes.

“I think that’s why we’ll prevail,” he said. Of course he did. Always the soldier, the loyal follower thinking about how to make Caesar’s vision reality, without ever wasting a thought on the moral cost of it. If Arcade had asked, surely Lucius would have claimed it wasn’t his place to decide such things. Arcade shook his head and scoffed. As the adrenaline washed out of his system, he was starting to feel a bone-deep weariness that he wasn’t sure even sleep could get rid of. He just wanted to be far away, away from Caesar’s narcissistic madness and Vulpes’s calculating sadism and Lucius’s disturbingly reasonable pragmatism. Arguing with any of them was like trying to have a conversation in two different languages, like trying to build a house on quicksand.

“You’ve done what he told you to do, haven’t you? Can’t you just leave me alone now?” Arcade asked. He sounded defeated. He felt it, too. He was already starting to miss the anger.

Lucius cocked his head to the side and then he nodded, but before he straightened up again, he reached out for Arcade, the back of his hand brushing over Arcade’s cheek. It was an almost tender gesture. Arcade flinched away, felt his skin burning where Lucius’s fingers had been.

“Submission isn’t an easy lesson to learn,” Lucius said. Calm, sensible, like he was speaking to a stubborn child. Arcade clung to the hatred that flared up in him; it was easier than being so damn tired of it all. “But most men are happier once they’ve learnt it.”

“I’d rather die,” Arcade said, even as he knew that it wasn’t quite true. Because he was still alive, wasn’t he? He had removed Caesar’s tumour, and nursed him back to health, and he discussed philosophy and politics with him when he was told do instead of biting his tongue and staying quiet. In so many ways, he had submitted already, and his disobedience was nothing but a farce to make his own weakness more bearable.

At least Lucius didn’t rub any of those things into Arcade’s festering wounds. He wasn’t cruel, despite it all. He wasn’t cruel, and yet he could do all the things he did – torture prisoners, rape slaves, execute on Caesar’s command – and not lose any sleep over it. How easy it was to turn men into monsters, to cut out their capacity for goodness and turn them into _this_. Maybe that’s why they thought of Caesar as a god, because he’d managed to make his men in his own image. 

“That is not your decision to make,” Lucius simply said and got back to his feet. His knees were reddened from kneeling between Arcade’s legs, and Arcade turned his head aside. Nothing was his decision anymore these days; he hadn’t even been able to stop himself from giving Caesar the satisfaction of making him enjoy this. Because of course Lucius would report back to him, and no doubt would Caesar taunt Arcade about it the next time they spoke.

Maybe that would finally be more than Arcade could bear. Maybe he would finally go too far, and this time Caesar’s order to Lucius would be to kill the impertinent slave. Looking at the water bottle in his hand, the one Lucius left with him as he ducked out of the tent, Arcade thought that Lucius might even have the decency to make it quick.

But he knew that was as much a fantasy as his dreams of escape. More than once, Caesar had wanted to debate the nature of humanity with him, insisting of course that men were wild beasts who needed the cruel lash of a strong master so they could serve a greater purpose than their own narrow-minded selfishness. Arcade was starting to think that all that was left of human nature when one stripped a man of everything he’d once cherished was the desire to survive. The _instinct_ to survive, just like any animal. So maybe Caesar had been right about that part, even if, as always, he’d drawn the wrong conclusions from it.

Arcade had always liked to believe that he was a good man. That there were things he cared about more than his own hide. But he was here, and he was still alive, and even as his wrists felt sore and bruises were starting to form on his thighs, he was glad for it. He didn’t like what that said about him. 

Caesar had told him once that Lucius knew how to strip a man bare, until he couldn’t even lie to himself anymore. He’d meant torture, of course, and Arcade doubted that Lucius had done anything on purpose tonight other than follow the order he was given. But he felt stripped bare nevertheless, deprived of yet another lie he’d found comfort in. Maybe once they’d all be gone, he’d be ready to die, but he suspected that too was a lie he told himself. 

He sank down onto the bedroll, breathed through his mouth because he didn’t want to smell Lucius’s sweat clinging to his skin, didn’t want to smell his own come. He wrapped the blanket around himself despite the heat and closed his eyes again, and the only bit of hope he could still find in himself right now was that nobody would bother him until morning.


End file.
